Our Future Clearly Visible Across the Pond

I'm not going to go into much detail; instead, I'll provide some quotations and hotlinks.

The situation: Labour Party-governed Great Britain, which isn't even actually a part of the European Union, only the European Common Market, is now abiding by EU labor laws in providing unemployment benefits for foreign nationals working the the country who get laid off. This has, as you can imagine, provoked quite a bit of criticism by the native born, who complain that a) first we print money to bail out the banks and b) now we get taxed to support people who don't even want to be citizens. I paraphrase, but it's something along those understandable lines.

Here's the blog posting (it is partisan since it belongs to the opposition British National Party) called "The Madness Continues."

And here's a fairly typical, though somewhat more restrained and sardonic, comment:

Funny that, because in the last recession I was told I was only entitled to the most basic support (about £29 per week) and nothing else because I had been working as 'self-employed'. Sure, I had paid my tax and National Insurance contributions for 9 years...but according to the the person I spoke to 'I had caused myself to be unemployed' by being self-employed in the first place and running out of work...it was my own fault! (and I'm sure nothing has changed)...so in other words, who's fault is it when you leave your own country and end up out of work in Britain? Of course...silly me...it's our fault...so we should cough up as usual...right??

I posted a comment too, saying in effect: "Thanks for previewing our future. We'll be there with you shortly. And bankrupt too."

Would Obama really makes us part of the European Union? Don't count it out, but what you can count on is that he will emulate EU labor policies as closely as possible, even "improve" on them.

People should listen more closely during our election campaigns. You get what you vote for.

Many Miss Out on Unemployment Insurance

Unemployment insurance was commenced in 1935 as a bridge between jobs, but this recession seems to be testing the limits of the system and revealing some inherent cracks.

First, not all states run their unemployment programs the same or use the same eligibility standards. The result of this disparity nationwide is that some 37 percent of those laid off fail to qualify for unemployment insurance.

This hits the lowest paid the hardest since they are twice as likely to be laid off while only one third of them ends up receiving unemployment checks.

Problems with the system began in 1982 when the federal government started demanding interest payments on funds borrowed to cover state unemployment insurance needs. In 1986, unemployment income started being taxed while states were suddenly required to eliminate unemployment payments from those receiving pensions or Social Security even though they otherwise qualified.

Curiously, even though the working world is now computerized, the unemployment system still goes by pre-computer standards and doesn't recognize a worker's last quarter of earnings. So, for those laid off in December 2008, no wages from Oct. 1 on counted in the computation.

Say you were a recent college graduate who started working in June 2008. If you were laid off in December, only the wages and work weeks from June through September would count. This would disqualify you in many states.

Fear not as the Obamites have a handy piece of legislation to reintroduce called the Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act. This act never made it out of the Senate the first time, even though Barack Obama was a sponsor, but chances are now good for its approval.

If enacted, the law would provide states with $7 billion to cover another 500,000 workers (works out to $14,000 per). An additional $500 million would be passed along to cover administrative expenses.

I'm not sure how this act modernizes unemployment insurance, but maybe there's more language in there to patch up those cracks. Otherwise, it's just a one-time payment.